Dead Gods
by sagenahui
Summary: l 04 l ... But there he is, sallow and feverish. Sakura sits on the floor next to the bed, too stunned to cry or grieve. Her blank expression and the brat's sick one might spell the end of everything Sakura's been working so hard to build.
1. 00 liminal

Disclaimer:   
sage: I thought we'd covered this before  
Lawyers: Not well enough.  
sage: Right. Cause y'know, I'm writing fanfiction and all, since I own CCS.  
Lawyers: Sarcasm is not a proper disclaimer.  
sage: Bite me.  
  
  
  


* * *

  


00  
liminal  


  


* * *

_ You told your great tale  
and it's always the same  
quite a shame that it goes this way  
is what you said.  
How very bizarre  
all those blood-letting games  
quite a shame that it goes this way  
is what you said.  
BT ~ Shame 

* * *

__ _

_ His return bothered me. More than I knew it would, but less than his illness does now. I expected him to come back and glare at the lot of us –well, at me –while he took Sakura on long walks in the park and held her hand. I expected him to stay late to help her study for math. I expected him to smile for her and be as distant from the rest of us as he could manage. _

_ I never thought he could change this much._

_ Sakura woke up proud the morning of his arrival. She would pick him up from the airport with her brand new driver's permit. She called every one of the numbers she'd collected in her previous efforts, making sure the apartment was ready –paid for, furnished, address thrice confirmed. She'd picked up the key the day before._

_ Father was away on a dig. I felt that that couldn't be a coincidence. I was about ready to tell her I'd ride along when she went to the airport, but Yuki dissuaded me. "It's Li-kun. Everything's fine._"

_ And it was, strangely enough. The boy Sakura brought back was so different from the one I'd known that I almost felt forced to like him. His features had sharpened and thinned out, baby fat completely gone. His eyes were more honest, though as powerful as ever… He was beautiful. And it hurt to admit that, since I knew that was a final seal on Sakura's eventual departure. _

_ The change had gone deeper too. Something inside of him had broken, the constraints and patterns of years abandoned for a new poignant freedom. He had a sort of amiable arrogance that he could pull off because he had the skills and knew their limits._

_ Despite myself, and every principle I ever held dear, I admired the guy. Yuki might have even gotten me to admit I liked him._

_ It seems hard to believe it's even possible to take down a person that alive. But there he is, sallow and feverish. Sakura sits on the floor next to the bed, too stunned to cry or grieve. Her blank expression and the brat's sick one might spell the end of everything Sakura's been working so hard to build.  
_

* * *

Metatext:

_ Meta-: more comprehensive: transcending _meta_ psychology -- used with the name of a discipline to designate a new but related discipline designed to deal critically with the original one _ meta_mathematics._

_ Text: (1) the original words and form of a written or printed work._

_ Metatext: my obnoxious, pretentious way of referring to _ author's notes_. Call me a lit-geek. Go ahead, you want to._

Don't flame me, I won't kill him. Or maybe that's what I want you to think. Mwahahahahaaa! *ahem*. Yes.

This little fic is threatening to become a painfully time consuming epic. Unfortunately I don't have much time to consume. I'll try though. This is manga continuity, minus the last, what? five pages? Basically, Syaoran does not return when Clamp says he does. Can I do that? Not sure, but I'll die trying.

Lawyers: *ready to pounce with semiautomatics, knives and baseball bats*

Or not. Preferably... Also: no Meilin. Also: no Wei. Also: less cards to deal with. Manga continuity really makes life simpler.  


All the music quoted and mentioned exists and is very cool. Keep an ear out for it, if you can. I don't own it any of it either, unless cds and mp3s count. So the lawyers can just fuck off.   


"Liminal" means "_of or relating to a sensory threshold _". I've seen it used to mean "prologue", which is really cool when you consider its definition. With that out of the way, I leave you to review. 

Try not to have too much fun.


	2. 01 paint what you know, not what you see

Disclaimer:   
sage: ¬_¬¿   
Lawyers: *glare*  
  
  


* * *

  


01  
paint what you know not what you see

  
  


* * *

_ Try, try to forget,   
what's in the past,   
tomorrow is here.  
Love, orange sky above  
There's nothing to fear.  
  
Birds singing a song,   
old pain is peeling,   
this is that fresh   
that fresh feeling.   
Words can't be that strong,   
my heart is reeling,   
this is that fresh,   
that fresh feeling.   
Eels ~ Fresh Feeling 

* * *

  
  
_

This much was obvious. The sight of him was more than she could possibly hope to be prepared for. The signs were gradually adding up to this unavoidable conclusion: she'd go weak in the knees and melt into a pile of mush the instant she saw him. Sometimes she felt like such a wimp.

First there was the hesitant, gentle tug at her senses, tinkling somewhere behind her and to the left. She turned, a painful expectancy bursting at the bare glimpse of a messy golden brown head, exploding into a million tiny pieces at the image of honey eyes and a touching smile, warm like honeymilk, so small only she recognized it as such. People cleared as he neared her with slow steps with determinate ease. 

That was the moment something inside her head chose to warn with painfully amusing alarm: Something's not right. Shock one: He's wearing jeans. As much as she tried, Sakura could not quite reconcile the thought of _Syaoran_ and _jeans_. It didn't go. Simple as that. She was about to get more reconciling to do. Shock two: messenger bag slung across his shoulder, one- inch pins all over the strap. Shock three: There was no way in hell that was an At the Drive-In shirt.

Damn it. What now? Sure, she expected him to change. He was eighteen now, for Clow's sake. But... y'know, there were limits. And this was beyond them. Damn it to all hell. What now?

He walked closer and closer with a fluidity she thought him incapable of, slouching ever so slightly with every step. This was not right. Fear gripped her suddenly. All she could picture at the moment were images of herself writing letters to _Seventeen_. "Now that my long distance boyfriend has moved back home, he has changed so much that I don't think I know him anymore. How do I know if he still Loves me?" 

While she angsted over the thought of becoming a teenage angst cliché, he reached her and simply stood (roughly a head above her height, he noted) and waited for her to react. He wondered what would happen now. A familiar tug at her senses, like an invisible tap on the shoulder, finally shook her out of her thoughts. She stayed as she was, unsure for an instant, her eyes bearing into him fully. He could hear vague memories of literature class. The confrontation between their souls, was it? D.H. Lawrence. _Waking Life_ and a girl with red hair. Dreaming that you float. Love. Overwhelming images of green. Rain forests. Dampness. Tears. Blink. All better now.

A hurried traveler scurried between them, tugging frantically at a huge suitcase and struggling with too many carry-ons. The haze cleared. Now out of the heaviness of the previous instant, he didn't hesitate in walking towards her. 

His arms wound around her in an uncharacteristically (or characteristically, who the fuck knew now?) tight hug. A pleasant smell of raw coffee and spice became inescapable. A sinewy shoulder under her cheek, wrapped in light cotton. Air. Breathing. Closeness and closed eyes. A hand on her back and darkness in her eyelids. Terse. Night. Bysshe Shelley. Letters, doodles on the margins. _"Decorations"_. Plain stationery at the start of physics, phone calls before math semestrals. His voice explaining Euler integration over international call rates. Ease. Patience. Warmth.

Fuck looks. He _felt_ the same.

Without a word spoken, he let go, offering his hand as compensation. They walked in a silence so easy they didn't notice it until they reached baggage claim.

"Did you ship everything ahead, or do you have more bags to get?"

"No. I shipped it all, the last of it should get here today. I hope you didn't have any trouble with anything. I didn't have anyone else I could ask to help me set things up."

"Well worth all the trouble," an honest comment, "Your landlord's an ass, by the way." She smiled, another comment popping into mind. "Kero had suggested I paint the walls peach pink and get you Provencal French furniture."

His face looked as if he had eaten something tart and smashed his toe against something. Well, to her, it did.

"I might tell you have nothing to worry about, but I really can guarantee that. Nakuru-the-design-major insisted to furnish your place with 'pieces by the world's most eminent industrial designers.' Try not to freak out if you see nothing but Barcelona chairs."

"As long as they aren't peach pink."

She smiled and he responded with a benign amused smirk. The intimacy it implied warmed her. 

Their tread continued easily down long corridors, galleries and finally down to the parking access. 

"I really wanted to pick out your furniture."

"It's alright."

"It's just that I spent the last two weeks arguing with your landlord. The people at the other buildings were nicer, I guess, but I just _had_ to get that place."

His eyebrows frowned ever so slightly in question.

"You'll see." She walked ahead and led him towards the left. "This is me."

This is her. White sensible car. This is her. Short caramel hair, intelligent eyes behind glasses with plum-colored rims. Pink and white baseball tee, and random jeans. This was her, leaner, longer; all warm smiles and kindness. This was him, the grinning idiot.

Two teeny beeps cut through the moment and he caught himself in time to rush out to get the driver's door for her. It was instinctual.

"You are such a clown." 

And he walked across to the passenger side. As soon as the seatbelt clicked satisfyingly, he deflated into a tired heap of humanity.

"Rough time getting here?"

"You've no idea."

"Relax now. You're home. All's good."

He smiled in thanks.

The car started moving. He caught a glimpse of her face, casually focused on the road, steering with ease before facing forward and closing his eyes with a sigh. The car smelled like her.

A red light quite a few blocks later allowed her to check up on her passenger, only to find him fast asleep, collapsed on his seat. Where had she read that men looked like boys when asleep? It didn't matter. It wasn't quite the case anyway. He didn't really look like he did as a child, as much as he looked… like she wished he had looked then, she guessed. Calm, worry-free. A twinge of guilt pulled at her heartstrings like a single guitar note from a Mazzy Star song. The Cards. The hell's mouth of this entire thing. But they'd also be its end. She'd make sure of it. 

* * *

Metatext:   
_  
Meta-: more comprehe-- Nah, you read it on the Liminal.  
_   


Okay, chapter 01. Yes, it was silly to leave it at nothing but the scant words of the Liminal. I've said "Liminal" twice in two lines. I like that word.

Anyway. All this thing is where the ball starts rolling. If you were wondering, the Liminal happens around chapter 03. Hang in there, this will get somewhere, I promise. Hm. Maybe you should sit in there, or your arms might tire...  


*Ahem*. Review. Please? You'll get a liminal cookie.

Three times now. I _really_ like that word.


	3. 02 hope blinds reason, thankfully

Disclaimer:  
I bound the lawyers and left them gagged on chapter 01. Go look for them there. Meanwhile, I must figure out how to get them off my ass. *schemes*  
  
  
  


* * *

  
02  
hope blinds reason, thankfully

  


* * *

_ …Creating a radio played just for two  
In the parlor with a moon across her face  
And through the music he sweetly displays  
Silver speakers that sparkle all day  
Made for his lover who's floating and choking with her hands across her face  
And in the dark we will take off our clothes  
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine.  
_ Neutral Milk Hotel ~ Two-headed Boy 

* * *

  


02.1

  
The afternoon sun, barely touching twilight, bathed the room with a painful pink glow. The entire space had a feeling of vague unreality; mirror-polished hardwood floors and a minimalist platform bed completely out of place in the industrial-chic walls of the reconditioned factory, their colors off under the tinted light. She shied away from the glare and buried her face in her arm. Syaoran shifted in his sleep, turning away from the light. His shoulder caught the sun, gleaming tersely under the creamy natural light. She moved so that his body's shadow guarded her eyes. 

A shrill ring obliterated her plans to go back to sleep. She scavenged for her shirt and jeans, and rushed to the entrance. At the push of a small white button, a fuzzy distorted voice asked to be buzzed in. Delivery for Li Syaoran. It took a minute or two for the freight elevator that was the main entrance to start rising with ominous rumbles. Through the cage she could see the box approaching, from what could be the depths of hell, nearing her feet, until, with a sigh, it finally stopped level with her head. Inside were two men standing guard by several large boxes, piled atop each other, covered in customs seals and held together with printed masking tape. 

She pulled the cage upwards and open. One man held out a clipboard. "Li Syaoran?"

"He's out. I'll sign."

"Afternoon, miss," the other man loaded in the first box.

She held the clipboard against a wall, just out of habit, and signed, as the men moved box after box out the elevator and into the big hybrid room she had no name for as of yet. Was it even a room, or was it an _area?_

The men finished up with a weariness she knew had to be fake. She gave the clipboard to one as they exchanged detached professional pleasantries, and sent them on their way to ground floor. Done with this, at least. 

A quick glance at the blue, curve-surfaced kitchen called her attention to the phone. After brief deliberation she sat on a stainless-steel-and-blue stool and dialed by heart.

"Tomoyo? Yeah, it's me… No, we're here. We're fine. No, it's just that his stuff just arrived and there's boxes all over the place. Uh-huh. Could you please tell everyone to get here an hour later? Yeah. Nine. Thanks, it really helps me out. Great. See you at nine."

She hung up and set the wireless back down on the stand. It was bright leaf green. 

How much had all this cost? Knowing Nakuru, all this funky, post-modern ItaliaDesign shit was not cheap. Lucky, those with trust funds. Then again, Syaoran did not really need all these things. He'd probably be perfectly happy with a mattress and a good napping couch. And a kitchen. Maybe even just a fridge to keep yesterday's take-out. She could not really picture Syaoran cooking anymore. Much less in this wavy-edged blue counter. She couldn't, in fact, picture him doing much at all in this apartment. Maybe once he got it more lived in…

She walked back to the bedroom, stepping lightly. She carefully slid the screen panels that served as doors and walls to a silent effect. They were plain beige. They needed something, her mind diagnosed, something Syaoran. She made a point of closing the blinds while she was up. She discarded her clothes and got back in bed. 

Four hours. They had four hours. How pleasant. This had to have been the best morning of her life. Things would fall into place now, she was certain. They'd finish the semester, go to college. She'd move here, they'd get married, maybe. She'd help him out like she'd promised and after he'd found him, it would all be okay. She would set things right. He deserved it. He deserved everything.

She indulged in his image, faint under the thin stripes of dying sunlight creeping through the blinds. He was beautiful. His build was lean and sinewy, terse skin scarcely scattered with faint scars, thickened with work at the hands. His chin was poised just so, his head tilted, his lashes casting long shadows over his cheeks. The sheets tangled on his legs and his chest rose and collapsed with his inherent rhythm. So beautiful. So unreal in his own strange physical perfection. Like a sugary-sweet machine, cadenced and powerful, balmy, fluent and fragrant. It was amazing to watch him move. She snuggled closer and he placed his hand on her hip. She loved the contact. She loved the feel of his weight on her, held tight and secure. She loved the satisfying blunt pain on her cheekbone as she pressed his collarbone against it, tighter and closer until she could feel his breathing this side of her skin; his heartbeat pulsing deliciously up her spine like low vibration with each of his strokes.

She could _live_ like this.

She did not notice when the blind-striped sunlight waned into tiny speckles of city lights. Things simply slipped away; right now nothing was of real concern. She had dozed into uncertain half-sleep and would take something big to jolt her up. The bed was warm and the room was slowly beginning to take on his smell.

By seven thirty, Syaoran had been watching her sleep for half an hour. With a sigh and a kiss he decided it was now unavoidable. He got up to shower.

"Msyran…"

"Hm?"

"Msyran, yr stuff 'rrived. Signed fr it. Hope you dnt' mind." She rubbed some sleep from her eyes.

"I don't. Thanks. Where is it?"

"Main space area living volume… thing."

He blinked a little, but decided to let it go, since Sakura was beginning to fall asleep. "Thanks. I'm taking a shower."

With a grin, she sighed something about nice imagery, and turned around to get some more sleep. He suppressed an embarrassed chuckle.

Now that the sun's glare had passed, he tugged at the blinds to let in the man-made starlight that dotted city blocks. A quick trek to his unfamiliar linen closet procured him a grayish sage green towel. He'd find soap and shampoo in the bathroom; he and Sakura had gotten such necessities just this morning, along with groceries and supplies for his own welcome-back party. He wondered how their get-togethers would go now that they were all most probably drank…

_"I would have bought it all before, but I wasn't sure what stuff you liked,"_ and she had smiled. _"I guess there's no reason to mention your favorite shampoo in your letters."_ It turned out the store didn't carry his favorite shampoo. The two of them had wound up sitting in the middle of the aisle, opening bottle after bottle of each brand they could find, deciding based on the smell and the back-of-the-bottle text. All the while a stock boy frowned at their hysterical laughter.

_"This one smells alright."_

_ "Does it say 'rinse thoroughly and repeat'?"_

_ "Uh,"_ he would scan the back of the bottle, _"no."_

She would shake her head. _"Never trust a shampoo that doesn't ask you to repeat."_

And with that he found himself in his new industrial bathroom. There was something about cold concrete walls in a bathroom that was just unappealing. And where in all hell was the shower head among all these pipes and tubing? A careful inspection revealed the knobs and once the water had started, all was easier. 

In the bedroom, the sounds of water falling in thick heavy streams with loud smacks dispersed sleep from Sakura's head. After a quick orientating thought process, she stretched the unusually aware muscles of her body. Time to get up, she guessed. Her friends, their friends, would arrive in a short while. Boxes had to be moved, emptied into closets, into shelves. A few personal objects here and there would help the feel of the place. A life had to be unpacked from cardboard and poured out like concrete into this new steel frame. And she was the one to do it. She walked a beeline across the room, picking up her clothes and his. She'd enjoy the mental image of her boy, wet and naked, later.

Or now, why not?

Small lacquer boxes and round black river stones, bronze figures of what Kero would call "Magicky protector thingamajigs", everything emerged from boxes wound in sheets of bubblewrap and crumpled balls of newspaper. Work methodically. Leave the magic books and scrolls for last, they can wait. A box on the nightstand. Three stones by the platform bed. A charm over the elevator doors. That looked... kooky. Three dog figures on the shelf by the funky lamp with the red leather shade. A print of what could be either an abstract green thing or a tropical leaf, over the couch. Mental note: get candles for the coffee table.

Syaoran came back into the room, his hips cloaked in a towel. He scanned the space and headed for a large box by the window, scribbled hugely with the word "clothing."

"You should frame these. We could hang them on the bedroom screens," she held up the rolled up posters from the bottom of the box. First, Clash. Mission of Burma. Nick Cave. Soulside. Fugazi. One last poster, a rolled up, crumbly-feeling Angel Hair, revealed a strange old friend, almost forgotten because of its permanent presence before: The Liasin board. It remained in her hands like an old document in a historian's. And she was one, for those instants, gathering sources, testimonials and memories, rebuilding the time when Syaoran appeared in her life, guns blazing and frown in place. Just a shell, she knew even then. 

She looked up to find him rummaging through the clothing in the box, all the while blushing and clutching at the towel, which was comically close to falling. What in all hell had he to be shy about, she wondered, as the night-illuminated Tokyo Tower cast a vague yellow glow through the window, alien on his skin.

She loved the view.

02.2

  
"…ixty decibels. If ten violins play simultaneously, what would the combined volume be?"

The teacher had dictated problems for the last twenty minutes. Painful problems. A classroom full of teenagers and casios and TIs worked away between the spurts of confusing numbers and unclear wording.

Sakura sighed. "I don't get it."

Syaoran kept quiet, waiting for the thoughts germinating behind her frown to refute her own statement.

"Okay. I think —Okay. Decibels are logarithms, right? So you can't add them."

"Exactly…"

"So then, you add…" she bit on her pencil, "Intensities. Reference intensity times ten to the _β_ over ten."

Syaoran smiled. "Exactly."

  


02.3

"Play this."

"Okay," he set down his beer, and extracted with great care the generic white CD-RW branded with Sakura's bubbly handwriting. _Magic Marker Singles_. The disc went in to his new stereo, one of those Norwegian floating disc things that still felt like an interesting stranger next to his old friend of a Discman. Syaoran watched as a translucent blue plastic lid closed over _Singles_ and it began to spin. This he sorta liked. But he was getting rid of the fiberglass salt and pepper shakers, no matter what Nakuru said.

Sakura watched his face with rapt attention, tense, like an ensnaring cat. He grabbed his bottle again and took a sip. Any second now. She ignored Nakuru's incessant chasing of Kero, who was ruining her masterpiece with that hyperactive flying and the cookie crumbs and he'd better stop it if he didn't want to wake up one morning to find his wigs clipped, did he hear her? She ignored his brother's uncomfortable cross-armed glare, and Yukito's superior amusement next to him. (Having Yue around inside him really gave him an unusual edge...) She ignored Eriol's absent gaze, that followed her own eyes, and she ignored the red light blinking in her peripheral vision, fighting the urge to snatch the digital camera away from her friend's hands. All this concentration so she wouldn't miss the instant Syaoran's face would scrunch satisfyingly with deep spiritual disgust.

"Oh, no." He shook his head. "No. No way. There is just no way—" He reached to stop the song, but Sakura's gaze deterred him. 

"C'mon, it's a great song!"

"_Tullycraft,_" he stressed the word with a grimace. "It's _twee_."

"It's twee_punk_. Still punk." She emphasized with a nod of her beer bottle. 

"That is highly debatable."

"Only by annoying purists such as yourself. Would you just enjoy it?"

He grumbled a reply she did not feel compelled to decipher. It was only a few minutes before his lips were barely moving along to Sean Tollefson, muttering softer than his breath, "… one thing I know, you'll find more Posies at the used bin than there're people at the show..." He was certain Sakura couldn't hear him. He was wrong.

"See? I told you it was a great song… "

"It's _catchy_," he spewed out the word. "It doesn't mean it's _good_. Oh, wipe that smirk of your face. I'm playing Antioch Arrow next."

"Your house," she shrugged, and took a sip from her own beer.

"Yeah well, it doesn't feel much like it when _certain people_ play music I _don't like_ on my _own stereo_."

"Oh, fuck off. Admit it! You like it."

"I do not."

"You do."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"_En_ough with the slapstick comedy." An exasperated voice erupted from the small ball of black fur erstwhile napping on the green lounge. "Some of us want to spend a quiet evening getting some rest."

"Aaaww! Suppi!" Nakuru relented on her pursuit of Kero to scold the other Sun Guardian "This is a party! You can't nap through it! C'mon, get up and dance, you wallflower!" That said, she grabbed Spinel by the front paws and proceeded to spin and tug him like an eight-year-old trying to make a rag doll move. Spinel did not look pleased. 

Syaoran felt the chaos called for some sort of justification. "Why are you people at my house, again?"

"To celebrate, of course," Eriol smiled with fake innocence and condescension. It made the other boy _very_ uneasy.

"Didn't you do that here just _last week_?"

"But that was your Welcome Back Party, Li." Tomoyo giggled. "This is your One Week In Tomoeda Party." 

Syaoran pondered whether he should hide his vynils.

"They just wanna get wasted, and you're the only one with an unsupervised home," explained Nakuru with a knowing wink.

Definitely hide the vynils. "What about Yukito?"  


"I don't want drunk teenagers in my house."

"Oh, and I do. And Hiragizawa?" He pointed at said sorcerer with an almost accusing finger.

"Mizuki," was the unanimous flat response from both the boy's guardians.

"You are so whipped."

"Shut up and give us beer."

Sakura laughed. The first few notes of Kissing Book started playing. Syaoran was arguing with Eriol. Well, this looked to be another interesting night. Maybe she should hide the vynils. She sipped her beer.

  


02.4

  
Yukito found him lounging on the top of the bleachers, school blazer and tie discarded carelessly, shirtsleeves rolled up, and the top buttons undone poignantly. Yukito could almost see him deconstruct his uniform with all the intent and purpose of making a statement, even if only to himself. Those were the statements that counted, after all. 

He had headphones on.

Yuki approached him, Yue feeding him aural readings somewhere between consciously and not. Though he might have seemed to be, the defiant schoolboy was not at ease; every sprawled limb, every unkempt hair, every wrinkle on his uniform was carefully planned to give a certain effect. Not fake, as much as overly purposeful. 

Yuki approached Syaoran Li from behind, sending out signals of his presence that the other boy must have been too absorbed to sense. He finally resorted to touching his shoulder. 

Syaoran jumped a little, but recovered fast enough to pretend it hadn't happened. He slipped the earphones to his neck and pressed stop on a rather unidentifiable object, presumably his Discman. It was a bright blue iridescent _thing_ covered with stickers, the paint chipping on the most battered corners, revealing a bland gray-white plastic. On the lid, "_Ĉerenkov_" was written with flaking White Out pen. The cd player had been worn down lovingly and with great care. Another significant detail.

"What are you doing here, all by yourself?"

Syaoran turned to him, and the sun's glare, by directional association. The boy squinted. "Hiding," he smiled wryly.

Yukito surveyed the scene before him on the school's sport grounds. There was weight in this place: memories are heavy. In the court, boys' soccer was starting to gather for a warm-up run. Cheerleaders clotted on the east side of the fields, and the track team set up the high-jump. "Weren't you supposed to be great at soccer? The sports captains must have been hounding you."

"Yeah… well, yeah. Though that's not why I'm hiding."

"Then why?"

The boy made a face. "I'm supposed to be in Japanese class, in the special after-school course with the rest of the foreign students."

Yukito blinked, trying to decide whether "concerned parent" was a good tone to take with him. "Don't you need to be there?"

"Not really. The final test is worth like seventy percent. And I'm sure I can ace it."

Wasn't he being overconfident? No, Vague Presence Of Yue assured inside his head, he was being just confident enough. "But then why are you here, in the sun, all alone, when school's out?"

Syaoran simply pointed. To the north, on the cinder diamond the older boy remembered so well, Sakura stood on the mound warming up her pitcher's arm, mitt already in place, while the rest of the girls geared up for softball practice. The two boys watched in silence while she threw the ball a couple times, watching her laugh even though they couldn't hear her. Her aura shifted warmly in their direction, absent and vague, probably moving unconsciously. Syaoran put the earphones back on.

"What're you hearing?"

"Tom Waits."

Yukito nodded. Syaoran pushed play.

They resumed their silence. 

_He has changed_

_ True. Though not nearly as much as you think, and not nearly as little as Sakura does._

_ Is that good?_

_ My guess is that it just is. You have to understand he's been living his entire life hindered by duty and weighted down under expectations. This is the first time he's had the chance to try out his own skin. I think that's the reason he came here early. He got fed up._

_ Early?_

_ Yes. The Li Clan had planned for him to come here for college, then go back to Hong Kong, hopefully with Sakura. He came months early. And in mid-semester, with all the trouble that entails... Something must have happened._

_ And?_

_ Sakura won't tell me anything. Kero's baffled too.  
_

Yuki considered a single thought for a moment.

_ … Is this the real Syaoran? Is this who he should be?_

_ I don't know. I can't tell if this is the Li he wants to be. But it is not the Li the Clan wants him to be. Right now, that is enough for him._

A shuffle beside him roused him from his inner dialogue. Syaoran had packed _Ĉerenkov_ away in his messenger bag, and was in the process of shrugging on his blazer. His tie hung limply around his neck. 

"Leaving?"

"Yup. Japanese is just about over. I have Physics Lab."

"And you _can't_ ace that?"

"Nope. S'why I like it." He smirked. "See ya."

* * *

Metatext:  
  


I work better with brevity. This three thousand world ramble was supposed to give some sense of time between the last and the next, important for reasons you shall see. As it is, it just sounds rather random.

Special thanks go to Persephone of Abydos, my beta, who was nice enough to help me pick out epigraphic lyrics. Get used to them, they'll be everywhere.

The Twee scene came about from a discussion between Perseph and me, on what kind of underground music our favorite characters might listen to. And by underground I don't mean more than "not commercial". Sakura likes twee, because Sakura _is_ twee, overly sweet but with an underside of something else, something potentially off. Syaoran likes punk simply cause that's one of the scant few genres that allow someone to be an extremely purist grouch. 

"I'm sickened by what passes for punk these days."

"I'm sickened by what passes for _music_ these days."

Yes, I've had such conversations. 

In case you were wondering, Tomoyo likes the Elephant Six collective, and Eriol likes Aphex Twin type IDM. Kero likes house. So does Nakuru. The rest of the characters I either forgot, or the discussion did not settle anywhere.  
  
Special thanks to the nice people who reviewed. The questions you voiced, starquestor and Nunichan, are precisely the doubts you should have as of this point of the plot. You both get liminal cookies. Dragon's Daughter gets a liminal cake cause she used the word "liminal". Don't you all feel special? 

Next chapter is the big one. It will probably take a while to write, mainly because many details there are crucial. I hope this chapter clarified some things. If not, feel free to ask. There's a drop down right there that says submit review. Be nice responsible readers, won't you? No? 

I'm gonna Throw Aggie from the Bridge. Have fun figuring that one out.


	4. 03 know how it is when something fits

Disclaimer:   


Lawyers: The author hereby known as nahui renounces any claim of ownership to Card Captor Sakura, as well as to the characters, original or not, portrayed here-in and the plot which involves them, since they are based on elements not of her property. That's right, you suckers you don't even own your own fanfics. Furthermore, nahui officially apologizes for assaulting and retaining the third parties here involved against their express will. 

nahui: *duct tape over mouth*

Lawyers: And we don't care if you feel stupid.

  
  


* * *

  


03  
know how it is when something fits

  


* * *

  
_ I hear them breathing.  
They know what I have done, all that I've been through.  
I tell them secrets.  
And who's to say it isn't so?  
  
Move, don't move,  
stay a little while on my linoleum.  
Breathe, don't breathe,  
walk a thousand miles on my linoleum._  
Tweaker ~ Linoleum  


* * *

  


03.1

  


The low rumble of the elevated train car traveled up Sakura's legs and spine, making something inside her tremor slightly. At the imperceptible shiver, Syaoran put an arm around her shoulders from behind her. She barely leaned into him, stopping right at that distance where she could sense the warmth of his body and the hairs on his skin standing— right before touching. She denied herself the contact in favor of a pleasant tingling expectancy, a slight caress of his senses completing the gesture. A warm radiance crept greenly up her back in response, sprouting tender buds from every tiny pore of her bones, his presence and hers shifting into and around each other like _Fighting Forms_, all wrapped-up in invisible strokes. She could feel him between and beyond her skin, running rain-soaked leaves along every one of her nerve endings. She closed her eyes. The radiance converged along her spine and then diverged again over her arms and legs, ending at her fingertips with the prickling creep of a growing stem. She felt herself gathering like raindrops, pooling at the apex of some jungle plant's cool green blades.

She released her breath.

Syaoran's loose hold on her shoulder tightened slightly, a bare hint of a real embrace. She leaned into him fully now, taking note of his shape behind her. Her head fell back, cradled on his collar. She let her eyes follow the avid love affair between the sun and his skin, pleased with herself that she could touch him just like sunlight did: warm and engulfing. She could feel her presence smiling. Syaoran kept her close.

Her eyes shut.

"I ran into Yukito at school yesterday."

He felt her nod against his neck. "Yeah. I think my brother said something about him applying for spot as a student teacher." She shifted her head. "I never thought about what oxymoron that title is. Student teacher…"

"Not really, if you think about it. They gotta learn too, I guess… I wonder what class he'd teach."

"I've no idea. I don't even know if he _is_ gonna be at Seijou. I'm not too sure I'd _want_ him there, either."

Syaoran's eyebrows furrowed in question. "Why?"

" 'Hello, class. Open your textbooks to page forty, oh, and, Sakura, To-ya said to make sure you have supper ready by nine, because your father is bringing a guest.' "

"That would not happen and you know it."

"I do not know such a thing. Besides, _you_ should be more concerned than me. You'd be hounded by the parafraternal forces." 

"Please. Yuki's cool. Besides, it's not like we get any privacy anyway. That entire damned school hangs on to our every action like they were watching a bad soap."

"They probably think it is one. 'Sakura, your boyfriend is, like, _so_ hot. You are so _lucky_.'" She laughed lightly and her presence twinkled with a rush of colors. How clueless can you be? How out of touch with reality that you can't see past the obvious?

He responded with a tender swish as of leaves rustling moisture off their tips. She shifted her shoulders against his chest. She was exactly where she wanted to be.

Three girls tripped over them on the way to the front of the car, giggling apologies all the way. Ignore them.

Okay, one more station passed. She made a point of noticing the buildings out the window. She'd only come around here once before, so she needed landmarks. She wasn't completely certain how to get to the record store where she'd found her Tiger Trap stuff; she didn't, in fact, remember its name. But she was certain she'd be able to figure out the way if they got off exactly where she had that time. Watching the billboards and neon signs out the window, she moved her hands to hang from her boy's forearm, her grip on him obvious and secure. Well, maybe she couldn't _quite_ ignore them. 

Where was she? Right. Two stations left. She closed her eyes and busied herself on nuzzling Syaoran's neck.

Syaoran's absent contemplation of the bright blue spring sky ceased when Sakura pulled out of his embrace, her hand keeping a hold on his arm to guide him out.

Outside the stuffy constraints of the train car, the earth glowed with bright spring sunshine, painful and burning warm, while the wind held on to its wintry needles. Maybe the light was too much, because he felt dizzy all of a sudden. Blinding whiteness seeped into his ears, drowning them in something tight and constraining. He felt his balance choking. At some undefined moment, he lost all notion of exactly where he was and how he was moving. He looked up at the sun; its singe kicked into being a sharp, long pain in his eye, like a worm, thin as a nerve, eating its way over his veins, nibbling painfully with infinitesimal jaws. His vision burned into red as the lines of pain spread over all his head. His skin felt too tight and his head too hindering. His muscles moved as if with taut ropes and pulleys, shuddering with inaccuracy. It overtook his spine and he found himself loosing all sense of his body, as the crippling strings grew capillaries into him.

_"Syaoran!"_

It took Sakura less than a microsecond to realize Syaoran had let go of her hand, but by the time she turned to him, he was crumpled on the ground shaking violently on his side. Blood dripped from his nose, and from a lower lip he'd bit into, spraying in all directions from the fierce spasms. 

Her shrill call startled passers-by miles around.

  


03.2

  
  


Fuck. 

Sakura rested her forehead on the cold hospital wall.

_Fuck!_

She let out a sticky, uneasy breath and abandoned the wall in favor of the whole pacing thing. Felt less stagnant. 

Tomoyo smiled at her wistfully, offering a silent still plea to sit down next to her and let herself be comforted. Sakura kept walking.

On the set of joined plastic chairs lining the opposite end pf the hallway, A particularly deflated Eriol sat next to a strangely quiet Nakuru. She paced. 

A little bit beyond, Yukito and her brother kept a watch on what happened on the other side of a blinded window, both their faces unreadable. She joined them, standing close to the glass, her head against Touya's impassive bicep. She stared at nothing.

On the glass, her reflection and Syaoran's refraction mixed into shapes she did not attempt to figure out, interrupted regularly by opaque gray lines. Her head rushed. Her eyes stayed open. This was not happening. This was just not happening.

The sound of a door opening shook the still life her head was fabricating behind her eyes. A nurse with a clipboard approached her when he saw no-one else move.

"Are you family?"

"Yes." 

He eyed her skeptically and held on his clipboard "What are you of his?"

Sakura held back an exasperated sigh. "His girlfriend. He has no blood relatives in the country."

"Okay." He handed her the clipboard. "But he's a minor, so I will need to contact a parent or guardian."

"Yes, I'll make sure I do that." 

"I'm also going to ask you to fill these forms, and then you can go in and see him."

"I'll fill them." Eriol's thick voice reverberated over Sakura's and the nurse's low whispers like a foreign sound. "I'm sure I'll know enough to fill them. You should go in." He took the clipboard from Sakura's numb fingers. 

She tread hesitant steps towards the door, finally laying her hand over the handle. She pressed her forehead against the imperturbable metal, breathed once, and walked in.

The air was colder than heaven, and she felt the ghost of mist gathering on her lips. She could feel thin, stringy, gnarled fibers all breathing out fog, tying intricately at a constrained center. She could feel something struggling to breathe itself free as the mangled limbs pierced into its core. She could feel the waterline around her thighs quivering with her steps.   


She shivered.

She could see Syaoran prone and surreally still on the bed. 

Gods, she hated this.

He turned to her and met her eyes, just as she took one more hesitant step and she felt her knee barely brush against a single fiber. 

In less than an instant, the strings all tightened their knot at the center, digging deeper, so deep that they drew blood, which diffused over the water like a violent sunset cloud. Painful pure sound erupted and rebounded from every wall, as people rushed at sonic speeds around her, fibers ebbing into ether as they passed, forming again and again instantly and constantly. Syaoran convulsed fiercely, back arching unnaturally. The strings were choking something inside him.

She flinched away. And the sea storm died at the mangrove. 

Eerie stillness returned to the fog-wrapped roots and the voices and sounds hushed. The fiber she had just brushed seemed to mock her with cruel sarcasm. She receded with deliberate care.

_Gods, no. Am_ I _doing this?…_

  


03.3

  
  


The spring tide had receded from the mangrove. Sakura could feel the waterline below her folded legs as she sat on the hospital floor, mindful that a half-asleep Syaoran did not see her, feel her, or otherwise become aware of her presence. She kept it locked inside, all the wilder from her fearful, angry hold, like a man being held back from a barfight. The mangled exposed roots of the tree extended all around her, twisting and rising away from the trunk behind her, where their sister branches kept a choke hold on Syaoran's very self. 

Her breath misted before her eyes. 

An occasional word drifted through the gray mist and vanished again, distant, unreal, and false.

"… resemble epileptic attacks…"

All around her, silky-still, black-green leaves staked their claims on spaces between the cold fog and the stark lucidity of cold air. The water was like an obsidian mirror. 

She thought.

Nakuru, Yue, and Eriol's auras gleamed through the fog like muted _ignes fatui_, quiet and sad, but there. The roots ignored them. 

It wasn't fair. 

"… no evidence of a tumor…"

The rank smell of silt bellow the water rose unheeded, as she closed her eyes and stretched her legs, always mindful that she wouldn't cause anymore pain. She got up and headed for the door.

"..ility would be an embolism, but again— Miss?"

"I need coffee."

As Sakura walked out with a dead expression Eriol caught sight of her lips muttering so low they barely moved. He turned back to look at Syaoran's form, forcing himself not to close his eyes and start weeping.

Outside, Sakura had to contain the urge to have Earthy shatter the hallway apart. That bitch. She couldn't believe she'd done this to them. To _him_. 

_Gods, we don't deserve this…_

* * *

Metatext:

Please don't kill me. I have a family of people who love me (or claim they do) and some people still waiting for me to finish my Rurouni Kenshin and Escaflowne projects. I promise this will work out satisfyingly, if not necessarily happily. And _that_ is still a possibility, since I'm a sucker for a happy ending. Hard to believe, eh? But I don't write one where it won't fit.

_Fighting Forms_ is a borderline-abstract painting by Franz Marc, co-founder of the _Der Blaue Reiter_ group. I love German and Austrian Expressionism. There are plenty of images of it on the 'net. Take a look at it to get an idea of what that first scene would look like. Just, uh, change the colors to fit.

Seen it yet? Yes, I swear it's not abstract. If you guess what it represents, you get liminal _brownies_. *wiggles eyebrows* I like to keep it diverse.  


_"Parafraternal"_ was inspired by _Mafalda_ cartoons. It's my brotherly deformation of Quino's motherly deformation of _paramilitar_ into _paramaternal_, "paramilitary" into "paramaternal". Don't look at me like that. Anyone from Latin America knows what I'm talking about. Right? RIGHT? 

Again, a special thank you to Perseph, who, again, helped me find epigraphic lyrics. And who loves anything with the word Linoleum in it. XD Rock on, mah sistah.  


water_soter and Cherry, worry not. Have you seen the review count on my other stories? If I wrote to get many reviews I'd never write anything. I do _post_ here to get reviews though, good, intelligent, enthusiasm-boosting reviews like yours, Taidora's, and Artic Wolf's. Quality over quantity. I am proud never to have been flamed, even though more than one story of mine would have been an easy target. Like my fifth semester Spanish teacher said, I write for intelligent people. Oh, and Cherry: It's not sad as much as very, very dramatic. Overly so. There's not much time for angst-and-wallow moments here, though it might end tragically.

I am frustrated for the lack of an English phrase to mean _fuegos fatuos_ that doesn't sound silly. Thank the gods for Latin's universality. 

The next chapter promises to be a nest of plot development. *sigh* I'll try to have it done on proper time, but don't expect much. I tell my teachers the same and they get mostly no results. With that I leave you to review. A good stroke to the ego is the best way to keep a writer happy.

Not philosophical. Just thinky. 


	5. 04 there's just the question of being it

Disclaimer:  


sage/nahui: to solve my pending problems with various lawyers, somnambulating has offered to perform sexual favors for them if they agree to leave me alone. 

Lawyers: *agree to leave sage/nahui alone* 

random people: *decide to pretend to be lawyers* 

somnambulating: Hey!   


sage/nahui: I'd run if I were you. 

* * *

04   
  
There's just the question of being it  
  


* * *

_ Your father ran from the stable.   
I stopped  
and stared   
without blinking,   
and I cried   
to see   
your eyes grieving,  
and I tried   
to move.  
  
In a dream I was footbound,   
tied down,   
forced to stare at the headlights   
before   
they ran   
me through.  
The Blood Group – Odin 

* * *

  
04.1 

_

"You can't take him!" 

Neither man responded. 

"He's a minor, only a legal guardian can check him out. You _need_ permis–"   


The nurse's speech was interrupted by a crumpled piece of paper hitting him squarely in the back of the head. Syaoran was just exiting the room, half-carried, half-dragged by Yukito and Touya. The doors closed. 

The nurse bent down to pick up the projectile, a business card that had been crushed in a fist, not three hours ago. "Call her. If you want permission, you can get it."

"This is not at all advisable, miss. He's far too weak to be moved, and we don't even know what he has yet." 

"And I _do._ So I'm taking him home." 

"Miss, you can't–" 

"Call her." Sakura walked out before the nurse could retort another prohibition. Her steps were action-movie-slow—lone hero(ine) makes an exit—, as she pushed open the double doors. She could feel the slight vibration on the floors, feel the rush of the air conditioning curtain that flew over the threshold as it messed with her hair, she could see herself through camera eyes—the rescuer, the savior, angsting. 

It was disgusting. This wasn't even about her. 

Outside, she leaned against the pillar that separated hospital door from hospital window, and watched as Yuki and her brother settled Syaoran in the backseat of their car, next to a coddling and worried Eriol. The older boys got in and drove off. She'd agreed to walk. She needed it, gods knew. 

The gnarled mangrove roots seemed to get further away, woody, brown, tangly and rank. Syaoran's senses had been fleshy and green, she remembered, tender and velvety, long and thin, like strawberry runners, reaching for her; like vine buds. She had loved to feel their whisper against her, whenever he saw her, heard her or somehow became aware of her. She'd catch sight of them as they neared her, and wait expectantly, in the lapse of just an instant, for Syaoran's face to light up, for the vine to wrap gently around her—her wrist, ankle, sometimes throat. 

The runners were gone, strangled by the knobby and contorted roots, roots that hated her, that hurt him. 

The mangrove tree seemed to get farther and farther away, water rushing away from behind her, making rivulets against the back of her thigh, like she were standing with the ocean water around her thighs as a wave receded, like she were the one moving away. The last tip of the longest root disappeared from her sight as the water drained away from her, leaving her feet firmly planted on a dry, cracked concrete sidewalk around a sterile and cold hospital, before the black asphalt plain of a parking lot, in an absent, empty city. 

She started walking home. Before long, she was wondering exactly where that was. 

04.2

Penguin Park was emptier than the streets on a chilly Sunday morning. Maybe because it _was_ a chilly Sunday morning, and playing was even less tempting than walking. 

Air felt cold on the skin; sunlight, warm. The passage from light to shade meant the passage from hot to cold. Under the intermittent shadows the trees' branches cast, Sakura wondered when spring would make up its mind and decide to finally be there. 

Halfway through the park, her aimless walking found a direction. She needed to sit. And think. She really needed to think. She neared it with doubtful, shuffling steps and let her hand hover over it before sitting. Cold seemed to radiate from every inch of the surface. The smooth concrete mouth of the King Penguin felt like an unreal version of ice: dry and gray. 

Sakura sat. And contemplated her own bangs. 

They were jagged, long and obtrusive. Their blunt, definite ends fanned a bit before her eyes, and for an instant she could think of nothing but the unreality of things when seen from very close. 

Thoughts just wouldn't come. Just when she needed them. 

Hair over her eyes, she wondered how it was that, at times, she could see it, and at others, see through it. The memory of an elegant cheekbone through the light strands hit her like an ice pick twisting below her lungs. Her chest wanted to collapse. 

She wouldn't cry. 

04.3 

"It's clean." Small scurrying sounds scampered over the apartment like little rodents; shuffles, shoves, squeaks and creaks as Eriol moved furniture and objects out of the way, making sure none of Sakura's presence remained in any corner of it. "Bring him in." 

04.4 

Sakura had become very familiar with her own ceiling. 

She had lain in bed for a couple of hours now, as night crept more solidly over her window, as her entire body started to tickle from lack of use. She felt nothing but her own pulse over her belly, under her ribs. She had intently listened to Azure Ray until every wafting note and wispy mutter became hollower than the ocean and as meaningful as glycerin. 

She was perfectly ready to spend the entire week just here, just like this. Pondering on how no matter how much she wasn't the one in pain, she was; and no matter how much she wasn't the one attacked, she was. Pondering just how much of this came from her and what she'd asked him and promised him. 

A twee band from Spain came on and it was all but disgustingly grotesque. She moved to press stop. And that was it. The dead act was over now. She sat up. Kero was still sitting patiently on her night table, little arms crossed, tail swinging, hoping she'd explain if he won the quiet game. 

"Done pretending I'm not here?" 

"Would you believe me if I said no?" 

"Sakura…" it was both a plea and a whine. 

She sighed, rubbed her hands over her face, and looked up. At the ceiling's corner, not at Kero. "Fine, then," she threw her arms without even any real exasperation. "What is it?" 

"Are you alright?" 

"Oh, alright, yeah," she sniffed, tried to hide it. Her voice was dead and deadpan. "Fine really, just peachy." 

The guardian said her name again, with the same inflection and the same meaning. "Tell me. I need you to tell me what sh–" 

"She's blackmailing me." 

Kero's plushie-brow furrowed in consternation. "What, with the brat? She's using _her son's health_ to twist your arm? That's–" 

"Sick." 

"What does she want you to do?" 

"Give up." 

She didn't let him ask for any details. The sound of the front door opening came before she even had to refuse to answer. The thought of her brother's return had the stairs rushing away under her feet like running water. A certain urgency, almost an excitement, flooded her from her throat, only to drop dead with even less violence than a heart-attack victim once she reached the bottom step. She stood, saying nothing and barely moving, wondering what she had to say or ask and feeling like a boulder that had fallen by a stream: still and unmovable, but there by random chance. 

"He's alright, you were wondering." He skipped the "if", exchanged it for a slight pause. It really wasn't necessary. 

"Right. Yeah. He's alright. Good… Really good, I guess." 

Touya didn't ask how she was, he knew the answer. With a sympathetic nod, he was ready to leave for his room, but her hauntingly commanding "Touya…" stopped him. He turned to face her. 

"How were you…" She sighed, and to herself, "Okay." She ran her hands through her hair. "Did you treat him well?" 

"Of course," his slightest outrage, "I know I've–" 

"I need you to not hate him." 

He didn't say anything. 

"You're the closest person to me he'll be seeing. You can't hate him anymore. _I need you to not hate him."_

"I don't." For once, the truth in his voice didn't frighten him. 

"And you can't be scared either." 

Of him? For him? Touya's brow furrowed. 

"Did you give it to him?" 

"I made sure he'd find it." 

The touch of small cool lips on his cheek was a surprise. With a quiet "thank you", Sakura bounded back up the stairs to her room. He waited a while before doing the same. 

04.5 

The world was a bit warmer and safer under the olive green comforter, where it was dark and the texture of the fabric seemed to nuzzle him when he moved. Aldous Huxley, he remembered—who had done mescaline and written the book that named The Doors—had been so myopic as a child he was declared legally blind. He kept reading in braille even after glasses and surgery corrected his eyesight, because, he said, that way he could read in bed without his hands getting cold. Syaoran wished for a flashlight. He wished for many things. 

A few shudders scurried over his spine, pale ghosts of the kind that had sent him to the ground yesterday morning. _Square Heart_'s notes faded over hollow space as The Black Heart Procession finished playing in the tiny concert hall inside his speakers. The Appleseed Cast replaced them. 

Before the song got loud, he could hear Eriol fixing something in the kitchen.   


Inside his stereo's blue glass, a CD-R spun its white face, clean of any handwriting.

* * *

Metatext:  


Rumors of my death have been wildly exaggerated. Of course, I assume there were rumors. It's far more likely nobody noticed and/or cared. Except for somnambulating, of course, who had been pleasantly harassing me over the several months during which I promised her I'd update. She wounded me with her lack of faith, told me she'd die before I updated. Well I _did!_ And she _hasn't!_ So there. 

Lapses like these are the reason why I write one-shots. Makes everybody's life easier. 

Thanks again to the many nice reviewers, Iram (Malfalda, baby!), Megumi, Vir-slave, racing rat, Cherry, Dragon's Daughter, et al. Special thanks to Perseph for being a wonderfully supportive helpful beta, and to somnambulating for being an annoying pain in the ass (the thanks are genuine, so don't complain.) 

Writing this chapter meant messing around with my over-all outline, so I have to figure the rest of it out before an update. I'll have boring classes this semester again, so I'll probably write more, never fear. 

Mo loves Laur, and happy Isaac Asimov's Birthday, everyone! 

If I wake up dead, I'll wake up just like any other day. 


	6. 00 lapse

Disclaimer: I have nothing. Given that IB acquired my soul two years ago, and that all my money is now property of Musiclab™ Record Store, the lawyers decided to take my witty-retort superpowers. Goddamn them.

* * *

00  
  
lapse  
  


* * *

_If I   
could be   
another man   
I'd be   
with you   
all the time.   
I will   
arrive   
at home   
so tired…_  
Manta Ray - Another Man

* * *

_"Due in great part to a complete misunderstanding of their armed power and their enemies, the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente rushed into a war they foresaw as short and decisive. Both sides' generals failed to grasp the possibilities and implications of quick mechanized warfare fed by large industrial complexes. Instead, they locked their armies into slow, stagnant, bloody battles. World War I started because each side was _certain_ they had an assured, quick victory." _

Our History of the XX Century professor had scribbled mounds of little notes on my paper. She hadn't found any conceptual mistakes, she had told me, but the writing was confusing at times and it was very unusual to see that many misspellings in my papers. She was slightly worried. Was I alright?

And I was, I assured her. Just a bit distracted. Oh, yes, of course, how could she forget. Li. How was he? Stable. She smiled weakly and gave me a handwritten list of work he'd have to catch up on. I grabbed his books on my way out.

I stopped by his place a couple of hours ago.

They're lying at the foot of the bed now, a silent tell tale heart.

This isn't my bed.

His stuff is all over the house. Waiting. To be taken home, to be burned to ashes or axed to splinters in frustration. I don't want to see them anymore. Sakura's presence runs around them like streaks, like I was seeing her photograph taken with a slow shutter. Syaoran's is just as fast, mostly, except it pools in places. Like his spot, on the right side of this bed.

Nakuru is busy harassing the salesmen about their return policies. Her "mint condition," her "not a scratch on them," her "that'll teach you to hang up on me, bastard" echo from the study downstairs into the dusty hallways by the guestroom. They seem distant, disconnected from me and from this.

Syaoran had been sleeping in one of my guest beds, transplanted from these dusty quarters to his bedroom. Everything else in the apartment had been store-bought, some-assembly-necessary furniture.

He looked small. He'd hate that adjective, I know. I don't like it much either. Hand fisted on the covers, messy pillow hair, soft breathing. I could almost hear a faint crick with every exhalation. He was otherworldly.

Sakura calls. She asks me how he is and I say nothing. She says my name with earnest weight, and I'm beginning to be afraid. She needs to speak with her, she says, in a way she doesn't get the upper hand.

Gods…

Is she sure about this? Does she really want to do this?

"Want"? If she can't protect him… If she can't protect him, Eriol, who can? She can do this. She has to.

When I walked out of his bedroom, his books were still in my bag. Every step of the way home, I could feel them. Silent tell tale hearts.

I was being silly. Why did I have them with me? I should have left them there.

… I can always go back tomorrow.

* * *

Metatext: 

nahui 13: You'll figure it out before.   
The Free Air: Probably not, if I couldn't figure out they would just get new furniture.   
nahui 13: keep thinking in that line.   
The Free Air: Actually, I figured that would be it but sometimes your creativity surprises me and I really wanted to hear it from you.   
nahui 13: well, let's hope the discourse is surprising, even if the story isn't.   
The Free Air: Oh come on. It's not like that's the whole fucking chapter.   
The Free Air: "Dear liminal, Nakaru-the-design-major forced us to buy a peach pink bedroom set because she swears they must have fucked at least bi-hourly on the old mattress"   
nahui 13: that's going on the metatext.   
The Free Air: Whoohoo   
The Free Air: See? You find me clever and refreshing.   
nahui 13: I find you weird.   
The Free Air: You find me clever and refreshing.   
nahui 13: ...   
The Free Air: So what about my Eriol impression won you over? It was the peach pink and the bi-hourly thing, wasn't it?   
nahui 13: ...   
The Free Air: No?   
The Free Air: ...   
nahui 13: you have problems.

… copypasted verbatim, completely unmodified, swear on Lou Reed's dog collar.

I wanted to name this an imaginary number. I wanted square root of 17, but I couldn't put the special characters in the title. Sigh.  
  
The customary hat off to Doña Catalina –Kate, that is– for being a wonderful beta, even at a time not quite easy for her. love ya, mah sistah.

Should I give up and say this thing is updated biannually? It's been a wild semester, well beyond anything I could have remotely foreseen. Those of you who care about course of my life and being will be glad to know that I find college fulfilling and fascinating, a rich, fun, mad, mad, _mad_ experience. Those of you who don't will whine about lack of updates. And you'll be completely right.

The semester was crazy-busy, and so is the summer so far. I'm writing reviews for an e-zine and volunteering for a Hispanists' Congress among various other projects, most of them personal. Much hard work and no fucking pay. I figure it's a good idea to squeeze as many of my starving artist projects into the years when my mother still supports me economically. This update, late as it was, was delayed a few days for an impromptu weekend vacation. Yes, it was weirdly fun. Thank you for pretending to care about my life. I truly appreciate it. Liminal cookies to all of you.

_**Iram:**_ e-mail me. Please.

I am in need of some serious outline reengineering. I lost my outline draft _again_, and it really doesn't matter because I have to change it –also _again_– anyway. I need more space to make Dead Gods Sakura coherent with canon. Which I know she isn't right now. And Syaoran… poor boy, I've put him through so much. And for what. A couple of beauty shots and an over protective girlfriend.

And then he fell down dead.   
(Leave that for sonambulating to decipher)


End file.
